Uprising of Hope

Sharing the Zapatista Journey to Alternative Development

Duncan Earle and Jeanne Simonelli

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The Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico, have often been portrayed in reductive, polarized terms; either as saintly activists or dangerous rebels. Cultural anthropologists Duncan Earle and Jeanne Simonelli, drawing on decades-long relationships and fieldwork, attained a collegiality with the Zapatistas that reveals a more complex portrait of a people struggling with self-determination on every level. Seeking a new kind of experimental ethnography, Earle & Simonelli have chronicled a social experiment characterized by resistance, autonomy and communality. Combining their own compelling narrative as participant-observers, and those of their Chiapas compadres, the authors effectively call for an activist approach to research. The result is a unique ethnography that is at once analytical and deeply personal. Uprising of Hope will be compelling reading for scholars and general readers of anthropology, social justice, ethnography, Latin American history and ethnic studies.« lessmore »

Duncan Earle is an applied cultural anthropologist who is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chicano Studies at University of Texas, El Paso. With over 25 years of continuing field experience in research and development in Chiapas, Guatemala, and on the U.S.-American border, his vita includes extensive publications pertaining to that work. Recent publications include 'Menchu Tales,' in The Properties of Words; 'The Boundless Borderlands: Texas Colonias on the Edge of Nations,' in New Perspectives on Migration(2000); and 'The Border Colonias and Communication: Applying Anthropology for Outreach,' in Public Health and the US-Mexico Border; Asi es la Vida.(1999) He is Co-Director of the Maya Study Program, which teaches undergraduates to do field research. Jeanne Simonelli is an anthropologist and writer who is currently Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Wake Forest University. Her field experiences are united by the broad theme of change and choice in difficult situations. Her principal publications include Crossing Between Worlds: The Navajos of Canyon de Chelly(1997); Too Wet to Plow: The Family Farm in Transition(1992); and Two Boys, A Girl, and Enough!(1986). She continues to work in the areas of development and conflict resolution in Chiapas, and will take this research to Israel in 2005. She received the 2000 Prize for Poetry from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, and has published both poetry and short stories based on her field experiences. Simonelli is the new editor of the journal Practicing Anthropology, and is Co-Director of the Maya Study Program. Earle and Simonelli have co-authored several monographs concerning Chiapas. These include 'Help Without Hurt'(Urban Anthropology, 2000), and 'Meeting Resistance' (Qualitative Inquiry, 2003). They have also written a number of articles for the popular press. In addition, Simonelli is author of 'The Scent of Change in Chiapas,' a book chapter published in October 2002.

1 Introduction: Lenses and VisionsPart 2 Arrivals3 Antonio Sanchez Cruz: The Road to the Edge of the Jungle4 Miguel Santiz: A History of a Person5 Duncan Earle: Heading for Hell6 Jeanne Simonelli: Invited to Abandon MexicoPart 7 Seeking a Path8 Roads to Rebellion9 Construction, Destruction, and Reconstruction10 Millenium Dreams11 Analyzing Community Development With the Help of the Community12 The Expulsion: Legalizing Autonomy in Cerro Verde13 Informed Permission, Invigorated AutonomyPart 14 Defining the Dream15 Alternative Constructions16 Whirling SilencePart 17 Horizons of Hope18 Acompañar Obediciendo19 Caracoles20 Waking Up in Reality21 The Sea of Our Dreams

Jeanne Simonelli and Duncan Earle have succeeded in their goal of sharing the Zapatista dreams with their students, anthropological fellow travelers, and what should be a wide readership with this book. En route it provides an extraordinary insight into the Zapatistas, their neighbors in the Lacondon rainforest, the governments de turno (shifting regimes), and anthropological efforts as theory and method of human lifeways. Their book may effectively change the way that ethnography is undertaken, as well as written, if their call for an activist approach to research and a collective effort in producing results is heeded.— June Nash, from the Preface

The Zapatista rebellion changed the way anthropologists practice their science in the jungles and highlands of Chiapas, where instead of being objects of traditional research, the rebel Zapatistas are now the subject of their own story. Jeanne Simonelli and Duncan Earle are anthropologists for the Zapatista age, never imposing their constructs upon the communities they study, examining and re-examining their own motives about what they are doing, and above all, listening closely as the indigenas tell their poignant stories of how Mayan indian villages along the Mexican-Guatemalan border came to embrace the Zapatista struggle. Uprising of Hope is an important book that uplifts and transcends anthropology.— John Ross, author, The War Against Oblivion

Earle and Simonelli make important issues accessible, and highlight the truly innovative efforts of the Zapatista movement ot resist domination from above and from outside. Their unapologetically committed scholarship seems in keeping with Gramsci's admonition to combine pessimism of the intellect with optimism of the will.— Journal Of The Royal Anthropological Institute